OBJECTIVE Although serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SRIs) are approved for the treatment of obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD), most OCD patients who have received an adequate SRI trial continue to have clinically significant OCD symptoms. The purpose of this study was to examine the effects of augmenting SRIs with exposure and ritual prevention, an established cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT)...

In this paper, first we define the notion of involutive operator on bounded involutive equality algebras and by using it, we introduce a new class of equality algebras that we called it a tense like equality algebra. Then we investigate some properties of tense like equality algebra. For two involutive bounded equality algebras and an equality homomorphism between them, we prove that the tense ...

Do human beings need rituals? Have they become an obsolete “evolutionary appendix” in the modern world, or are they an indispensable part of the human condition? Right at the start, I wish to adopt a clear stance with regard to this repeatedly controversial discussion in ritual studies: From the perspective of cultural anthropology, I assume that human beings need rituals, that they are an anth...

iii Dedication This thesis is dedicated to my parents, Bill and Barbara, my brother, Peter, sister-in-law, Sharon, my girlfriend, Sylvia, my cat, Oli, and all the other family and friends that have supported me in the pursuit of my dreams. iv Acknowledgement I am grateful to my thesis committee members, Aaron McNamee, Dan Rule and Kathy Rodriguez for all their help and guidance. I appreciate th...

We introduce a new formal logic, called equality propositional logic. It has two basic connectives, $boldsymbol{wedge}$ (conjunction) and $equiv$ (equivalence). Moreover, the $Rightarrow$ (implication) connective can be derived as $ARightarrow B:=(Aboldsymbol{wedge}B)equiv A$. We formulate the equality propositional logic and demonstrate that the resulting logic has reasonable properties such a...

Ethnographic, historical, archaeological and experimental work suggests the existence of two basic clusters of ritual dynamics or ‘modes of religiosity’ — a low-frequency, high-arousal cluster linked to the formation of small cohesive communities (imagistic mode) and highfrequency, low-arousal cluster associated with larger, more centralized social morphology (doctrinal mode). Currently, howeve...

Traditionally, ritual has been studied from broad sociocultural perspectives, with little consideration of the psychological processes at play. Recently, however, psychologists have begun turning their attention to the study of ritual, uncovering the causal mechanisms driving this universal aspect of human behavior. With growing interest in the psychology of ritual, this article provides an org...

Four experiments tested the novel hypothesis that ritualistic behavior potentiates and enhances ensuing consumption— an effect found for chocolates, lemonade, and even carrots. Experiment 1 showed that participants who engaged in ritualized behavior, compared with those who did not, evaluated chocolate as more flavorful, valuable, and deserving of behavioral savoring. Experiment 2 demonstrated ...

This paper considers religion in relation to four recurrent traits: belief systems incorporating supernatural agents and counterintuitive concepts, communal ritual, separation of the sacred and the profane, and adolescence as a preferred developmental period for religious transmission. These co-occurring traits are viewed as an adaptive complex that offers clues to the evolution of religion fro...